Yatate

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Yatate are small personal smoking-pipe-shaped writing sets from medieval Japan which provided a carrying box for the ink cotton, and a shaft for a brush (and possibly a letter opener). Yatate literally means "Arrow Stand" ("ya-tate"). The name comes from the fact that early bushi kept ink stones inside their arrow stands. Japanese writing was traditionally done using the usual writing set inspired from China: an inking stone, a small stick of solid ink (sumi) (which is turned to usable liquid ink by grinding on the inking stone and watering), and brushes. The set is heavy, clumsy, and it takes some amount of time before being ready to write. During the Kamakura era (1185-1333), the idea of ink-saturated cotton appeared. By touching the cotton with a brush, one made it ready to write. By enclosing the cotton in a little box ("sumi tsubo"), it was possible to carry the set around without risk of spilling ink.